Development > Artwork
(Redo) WIP of new Soldier Model
Destructavator:
--- Quote ---Im still a tad fuzzy on the "tag" concept. Where would the bone thats a tag go? Theres a bone for the hand, so why not tag that bone? Then the object will move with the hand, and I and any other animator dont have to worry about an extra bone
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OK, a tag is kind of like a bone, but instead of being attached to the same mesh or object as the rest of the skeleton it tells the game engine "When I want to attach a weapon to the palm of this models hand, this is where it is and how it will be positioned in the hand." With the palm of a hand, yes, you could probably get away without an extra bone to show where the weapon goes and how it fits in the hand, if you make the tag for the weapon a child of the hand bone which is the parent. Yes, you could just slap the tag right on the palm, but you wouldn't be able to do special animations such as having a character twirl a gun in his hand (showing off after shooting something).
An extra bone on top of the neck, for the head, is definitely necessary unless you don't want the character to be able to turn his/her head in any animation.
So if you include a "head bone" on top of the neck and animate it as if the model had a head, instead of putting a real head mesh up there you replace it with a tag that tells the game "this is where a head mesh will be, it just isn't included with this file."
It's kind of like having an armature controlling multiple mesh objects in the same scene, except one is replaced with a tag so that the other object included elsewhere with the game files goes there. The tag itself isn't really an object and isn't rendered.
I admit that's a clumsy explanation, parts of which you might already know, but I hope it helps.
--- Quote ---Aside from FileFront, no. The SVN I used for my game stopped working.
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If the file with the skeleton - just the skeleton - isn't too big in size you could attach it right to a post in any thread here, the max attachment size is currently 1024 KB, and you could also compress it in a .zip file to make it fit.
Alternatively you could email the whole thing, my email address linked to my forum profile takes attachments up to 20 MB or so if I remember correctly. I could then put it on my website server with the other files I've linked to, or pass it around other ways.
vedrit:
OOOOOohhh! I see. Yeah, it might be handy for idle animations. Add a little "Pizzaz" to it
And I attached the blend file. Its the skeleton and what handles I put in
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Destructavator:
--- Quote ---OOOOOohhh! I see. Yeah, it might be handy for idle animations. Add a little "Pizzaz" to it
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Yep, and as you can see, once a skeleton is in place adding the tags is quite simple.
--- Quote ---And I attached the blend file. Its the skeleton and what handles I put in
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Alright! I've been itching to see some of these new models running around animated - I'll try this skeleton with the latest models ASAP and report back later on how it works with both the male and female models, or at least the male one.
Destructavator:
OK, I lined up the skeleton you made with the most recent male model, just two things:
1) The knees look a little low to me, probably because the final model of the male soldier has higher knees, but this is easy to fix if it really is an issue - I could be wrong though.
2) The hand bones line up OK, but there aren't any for the fingers. I could go back and glue them into mittens, but personally I think it would look the best in the game for the soldiers to have animated fingers, while the tags for weapons and items would attach to the palms. For most weapons and items, the fingers could cup around in a generic pose, although for special animations the fingers could do things, and perhaps for idle animations a soldier could flex a hand or something. Animating the fingers would also look good for throwing grenades and such, when a grenade leaves the hand the fingers spread out or something.
One other thing - do you have a version of the file where the vertex groups are already created and the skeleton is attached to the model already? If not, I could take care of this if you want, or you could do it.
Other than that, the skeleton looks great to me, much better than my clumsy attempt with the first soldier model I made.
Edit: I'm guessing the boxes and disc are the "handles." I can see how they would assist for some animations, although personally I wouldn't need them if I were animating, but that's just me. (Not that there's anything wrong with them.)
vedrit:
1) Yeah, the knees arent adjusted for the update. Like you said, easy fix
2) I thought that we werent allowed to do individual fingers. If we can, then HECK YEAH!! I'll gladly add bones for fingers and the joints
3) The only group I made was for one of the hands, mostly to check how the mesh was reacting to the handles. But I can get the file where the mesh is attached to the bones.
Yeah, the boxes and circles are the handles. Its part of the job, and really makes animating easier if the rigging (thats what its called. Putting on the bones and handles) is done right.
Thanks. I havent done much in the way of rigging since my first year of animation. If you asked how to do it in Maya, I would be able to say
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